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Though Ufw has a command-line client that is easier to use, Firewalld brings a lot more features to the table. For example, Firewalld introduces the concept of network zones, which define trust levels for network connections or interfaces.

Firewalld is Fedora’s way to provide dynamic firewall properties in Linux. Thus way changes in the firewall configuration are applied immediately, without the need to restart. Additionally, firewalld supports D-BUS and zone concepts.

In this alpha release, Firewalld is installed and running, but firewall-applet is not installed. This, for example, is the interface for firewall-config. It does not work, so I could not mess with it. But you can tell that the final product will be easy to manage.

On Fedora 18, the new firewall application is called FirewallD. It has its own command-line and graphical utility, but the graphical firewall tool installed belongs to the old firewall application which it replaced.

The CC Network Filesystem (ccgfs) lets you mount filesystems over the network using either the push or pull model for connections. Most network filesystems use the pull model, where the client mounts a network share and all connections originate from the client.

Zenmap is the official graphical user interface (GUI) for the Nmap Security Scanner. It is a multi-platform, free and open-source application designed to make Nmap easy for beginners to use while providing advanced features for experienced Nmap users. The purpose of Zenmap is not to replace Nmap.

In most modern Linux distributions, network configuration is handled by NetworkManager, a desktop-neutral service that seamlessly manages connections. It leverages D-Bus and HAL to provide a standardized programming interface through which higher-level applications can interact with network configuration and expose networking functionality to the end user.

There are several categories of zones that must be configured. You need to have forward lookup zones, which allow the nameserver to match names to IP Addresses. You’ll define these zones in the /etc/bind directory, in files with the “db” prefix.

Now it’s time to discuss one of the most mysterious and confusing parts of Linux to a Windows user: the command line. To most Windows users the prospect of typing in what you want your computer to do is completely foreign and thus intimidating.

Linux is an excellent platform for network administration. If you want to monitor your network traffic, you can find many tools -- some accessible from a Web interface, others using a graphical interface -- but nothing beats the speed of the command line.